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Google changes its search box

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Re: Google changes its search box

#631

Post by monkpit »

wvenable wrote: post #165
ekidd wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which as some running a website raises a fascinating question. If Google is just going to crawl my sites and present information as an AI summary on their site, then what exactly do I gain by allowing Googlebot to crawl my sites?

It's a catch-22. Without google crawling your site, you don't get any new traffic. But with google crawling your site, you also might not get any traffic. AI summarization has already causes issues for sites like rtings where people are no longer visiting the site but still making use of the data presented there. Leading to rtings not getting enough traffic to continue to post their data. It is an existential crisis…

Step 1, Google serves info directly and consumers rejoice

Step 2, Google extinguishes the web and nobody has a reason to publish content, consumers lament but are trapped, Google has created a platform to serve content instead of links

Step 3 (or maybe 2a), Google is now monetizing their content machine

Step 4, Google offers people a way to contribute to the content machine, make some $$ per N views, whatever. People create content within the ecosystem

Step 5, Google is now the internet, more content is created overall, quality is lower overall perhaps, algorithmic echo chambers flourish even more than today, old heads on HN lament, everyone else just goes on living

Re: Google changes its search box

#632

Post by krige »

dyauspitr wrote: post #594
BrunoBernardino wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, we can collectively "fight back" by not using Google and teaching others around us to do so as well. There are plenty of decent [1] and great (better) alternatives, where you're not the product [2]! [1]: https://alternativeto.net/software/google-search/?license=fr... [2]: https://alternativeto.net/software/google-search/?license=co...

Fighting back is stupid, these things are inevitable, and honestly probably for the best over the long-term.

Nothing is inevitable, and long-term effects of google's move are unknowable.

Re: Google changes its search box

#633

Post by tdeck »

fscaramuzza wrote: post #290

What scares me about this new AI mode thingy is that every answer sounds like a systematic literature review, but only for the results. For example, if I look for users feedback about a specific product, it says "People think that..., but also that...; It's important to notice that some people ..." where with 'people' it means just a random comment on a random website just because it thought it was a good contributio…

> where with 'people' it means just a random comment on a random website

My experience is that Google's AI summaries tend to be be very heavily reliant on YouTube videos. If there is a YouTube video on the topic, you can bet that's what the source will be, at least for the topics I have searched lately.

Re: Google changes its search box

#634

Post by atoav »

salomonk_mur wrote: post #530
nicbou wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has reduced traffic to my website by around 65%. I live from that website. My income is a function of the traffic it gets. I spent 9 years of my life putting hard-earned information on the internet, and now big tech uses it to enrich themselves while putting me out of work. Even my backup plan - software development - is being devalued to hell. It's so damn depressing. We'll get the internet that we deserve.

To be fair, the traffic you had was mostly routed by them as well. Google giveth, Google taketh away.

No. OP made the content Google copied with AI to their landing page, which reduced the traffic.

But I forgot that they convinced you to accept AI as a magic "make copyright disappear"-technology.

Re: Google changes its search box

#635

Post by RyanOD »

Groxx wrote: post #527
RyanOD wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, fair. Hard to understand why it would get that wrong.

They are this wrong about everything , but you don't usually notice it when using it to look for things you aren't an expert in. The default stance really does need to be "do not trust, verify" at all times . They can still be useful, e.g. they're significantly better at finding "I want a thing that does x but not y and it must be blue, or maybe two things that can be glued together to do that" than classic search. B…

How can you say they are wrong about "everything"?

I built a retro game clone once and I used that project as a way to try out AI. While it wasn't perfect, it definitely wasn't wrong about everything. I'd go so far as to say it was probably correct (or damn close) 75% of the time.

I see people on HN all the time saying AI is terrible, but that just isn't the experience I'm having. I'm willing to admit it may have something to do with me not being able to recognize I'm being fed bullshit. Or, I may be asking really simple questions. Who knows? But AI seems like a pretty useful tool for average people.

Re: Google changes its search box

#636

Post by giantfrog »

If Google changes the internet so that no one visits websites anymore, no one is going to make or maintain websites. And at that point, A) What is left of the internet and B) What is left for Google to summarize via AI?

Re: Google changes its search box

#637

Post by Robotbeat »

lelanthran wrote: post #623
Robotbeat wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or… the default LLM Google uses for search has been quantized to s**. Ask a proper Thinking model, with browsing enabled, and odds of a correct answer are much higher. There’s been substantial improvement in AI in even the last year. Ask a human a question like this, and they also have a chance of getting it wrong, even when confident.

> Ask a human a question like this, and they also have a chance of getting it wrong, even when confident. We google something specifically because the humans within reach don't know. The goal of searching is, well, to search pages - we're trying to find a site when we use google search. The goal when using an LLM is generally different; we want an answer, not a site.

LLMs are not a site. They are a clever person that can point you to sites. They, like humans, are fallible.

Re: Google changes its search box

#638

Post by youre-wrong3 »

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #529
youre-wrong3 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh who cares. We are barely scratching the surface of AI. You all make it sound like it’s been around for 30 years and it sucks. It will only get better. Got to stop throwing up imaginary walls like nothing will improve.

My grandfather was one of the first people in Canada to own a commercially available chainsaw. Let me tell you - it didn’t take 30 years for people to figure out that chainsaws were useful.

Yet most of the kids on HN think they write better code than ai and that it’s completely useless and has no place.

Re: Google changes its search box

#640

Post by Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe »

johnny_canuck wrote: post #537
thelastgallon wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of Walmarts squeezing strategy with all the manufacturers. Business with us at the price we say or out of business.

But ultimately that strategy is good for the consumer right? In this context, if Google is going to give me the recipe without having to scroll through the story, that seems like a win to me. The ad-revenue driven Internet of web 2.0 is finally dead and I'm not sure I'm all that sad.

> But ultimately that strategy is good for the consumer right?

No because it's killing competition and becoming an even more obvious monopoly. Then at any occasion they have to choose between consumers and profits, they'll do what shareholders want and increase profits.

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